Gallardo/Budoff at the Rollins Museum of Art

Posted on by The Wandering Art Historian

The Rollins Museum of Art (formerly the Cornell Museum of Fine Arts) in Winter Park, Florida is hosting an exhibition that is definitely not to be missed. Gallardo/Budoff: Growth, Breadth and Terrain is on view at the museum until December 31st and admission to this high caliber exhibition is free, so no excuses – just go see it!

What makes this exhibition so interesting is that the two featured artists – Frances Gallardo and Nathan Budoff – are connected by their residence (Puerto Rico), but their differing experiences living there are wonderfully expressed through a variety of media.

Nathan Budoff, who relocated to Puerto Rico more than two decades ago, creates large scale canvases with striking color schemes to turn elements of the real world into surreal flights of fantasy. Resulting in a mural-like format, the viewer is enveloped by the beauty of the work and the obvious talent and skill of the artist, but simultaneously confronted with the issue at hand – climate change.

“Rising Water,” Nathan Budoff, 2020

Frances Gallardo explores what it means to grow up in Puerto Rico. On one wall of the exhibition, she transforms the menacing spiral forms of hurricanes into delicate cut-paper artworks that look like the elaborate doilies one might find in a haunted Victorian bed and breakfast in the Caribbean.

Hurricane series by Frances Gallardo

For me, her most impressive work is a piece titled Murmuration (Mosquito Cloud) in which hundreds (thousands?) of laser cut mosquitos swarm an entire wall of the gallery!

“Murmuration (Mosquito Cloud), Frances Gallardo, 2017
Detail of “Murmuration (Mosquito Cloud)” by Frances Gallardo

Again, and I cannot stress this enough, this is an exhibit you will kick yourself for not seeing! The amount of sheer talent temporarily housed in this one gallery is astounding and the emotional currents that run through the artworks will consume any visitor who takes the time to see and experience the work for themselves.

For more information on this exhibition, please visit…

https://www.rollins.edu/rma/exhibitions/2021/gallardo-budoff-growth-breadth-and-terrain.html

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I am writer and artist with a degree in art history who loves to talk to people about art. I have spent the last seven years building up The Wandering Art Historian “brand” as a way to connect with people who want to learn more about art. I give lectures and presentations and teach classes and host book club discussions with a creative or artistic connection. I also write about local artists, events, museums, and exhibitions to promote the arts in Central Florida. In 2021, I had a creative crisis. I struggled with authenticity in the art making process. I decided to make myself vulnerable and find out what a real, genuine Adrienne H. Lee artwork would look like. The process was challenging and emotional and revelatory. I learned that if necessity is the mother of invention, then authenticity is the mother of reinvention. I reinvented myself and learned an entirely new medium. The resulting artwork surprised me, and it will surprise you, too. Some people wish for a fairytale ending. For me, the fairy tale is only the beginning.